ith the deer dragged at
the end of the rope.

They had no salt, but there were a few rinds of bacon that Haig had
told Marion to keep, and these were made to serve for seasoning. That
venison, moreover, needed nothing to make it palatable; for they were
ravenously hungry. Sprawled before the fire like savages, they feasted
on a huge steak, broiled on two willow sticks, and well-browned on the
outside at the start so that the tenderness was retained; and for an
hour forgot. For so the stomach, at once the tyrant and the slave, has
sometimes its hour of triumph, when heart and soul and brain are its
willing captives, and the starkest fears and forebodings lose their
sway, and death itself, though visible and near, has no power to
ferment the grateful juices of the body.

CHAPTER XXVI

THE SNOW

In the night they were awakened by a terrific outburst on the mountain
top, surpassing all they had yet heard since their arrival in the
valley. The forest roared under the onslaughts of the wind that swept
down through the gorge as through a funnel. Protected though the camp
was, in a measure, fierce gusts now and then assailed it, and later
the rain came, almost in torrents, beating through the canopy of
foliage, and half-flooding the bed.

Marion, rising to renew the fire, felt that a sharp change had come in
the atmosphere. It was colder than any night they had yet endured.
Wrapped again in her blankets, she was unable to keep warm. Her feet,
near the fire, were too hot, while her back and shoulders ached as if
they had been packed in ice. Turn which way she would, on her back, on
her side, or face downward, there was no relief from that acid cold.
She did not complain, but cried softly, trying to hold back her sobs
so that he should not hear her.

"You're cold," he said, hearing her nevertheless.

"A little--not very," she answered bravely.

But he knew very well how keenly she was suffering. His injured leg
pained him almost beyond endurance, as if the frost had been
concentrated there. There was nothing he could say or do for her or
for himself.

Toward morning, the fury of the storm having abated, they slept a
little, fitfully and uneasily, in the half-insensibility to suffering
that complete exhaustion brings. But they were glad when the first
gray light of morning stole in among the shadows and touched their
eyelids. With one accord, as if in a common apprehension, and moved by
a single fear, they rai